Arrival

by William Dickey

  Units one and two quickly retreated to the back to support the mages. The knights took their positions forming a wall of steel between the mages and the savage beastmen. With only two units, the protective line was weak and there were occasional breaches, but by in large it was holding. The rate of deaths dropped and Merlain relaxed. With some luck, none of the mages who died would be high ranking and he wouldn’t be in too much trouble.

  ‘So this is what fighting a beastman army is like,’ Merlain thought. He had seen many battles before, some even against the beastmen, but none quite like this. Merlain had spent his early career in the south facing off with the Drulorians. Those necromancers used swarms of the undead to wear the opponent down. He’d never had to go against a sizable beastmen force, but then again, no one had.

  ‘The beastmen are quite different. They have the endurance of the undead,’ Merlain remarked surveying the beastmen soldiers. ‘And the skillful control of a human. But they are faster than either. I’m just glad we have the mages, no blade could compete with them.’

  Then Merlain heard the roars of giant beasts from behind him. The beastmen were attacking the front. His army saw the beastmen. Units three, four, and five had remained in their defensive lines at the front. Unlike the rear attack, the beastmen charge was completely visible. Hundreds of beastmen, mostly the heavily armored bulls and rhinos were slowly climbing up the mountain toward the human army.

  “Knight Units 3, 4, and 5 tighten up those lines. I don’t want a single beast to get through. Mages, the enemy is hitting the front as well. Send what you can to help defend. The enemy at the rear is weakening so gradually redirect firepower to the front,” Merlain commanded as his self-esteem returned.

  Merlain watched the beastmen charge, knowing that the first hit would likely determine the outcome. The massive momentum carried by a bull at full speed was frightening even to the bravest of knights. Merlain could only hope that several lines of tightly packed flesh and steel would be enough.

  Then something peculiar happened. When the beastmen got within fifty feet of the defensive line, their pace slowed and they reverted to their humanoid forms.

  ‘What are they doing?’ Merlain wondered. ‘They just gave up all that momentum.’

  Before the beastmen even reached his knights, the mages fired a volley of magic, trying to pick off as many as they could before proximity to the knights made large-scale magical attack impossible.

  Merlain’s gut sank as the magic did nothing to the charging beastmen. Fireballs, lightning bolts, beams of frost, and waves of earth all fell just a few feet short, all evaporated before their targets. Then Merlain noticed the armbands all the beastmen wore. Even from this distance, nearly a hundred yards away, he could see the dim glow of the enemies’ wrists.

  ‘A sigil. A shield. Not possible. That’s not possible. The beastmen aren’t supposed to have magic.’

  “Mages, interference now,” Merlain ordered but it never went through.

  The beastmen deemed they were close enough and brought out the metallic rods leashed to their belts. The rod artifacts flared to life burning away all who stood before them. Most of the mages survived the fire, their shields providing a more than adequate defense, but the damage was done. Knight Units 3, 4, and 5 were decimated. Leaving the mages unprotected as the beastmen shifted back into animal form to launch the physical assault.

  ‘Over half the knights are dead. What remains isn’t enough to protect the mages. This battle is lost. I must leave, we all must. The only thing left here is death.’

  Merlain turned to one of his lieutenants. “Sound the retreat,” he muttered. This was one order he didn’t dare to shout out himself.

  “Sagemeister Vanderbule,” Merlain whispered to the most powerful mage in the vicinity. “I need you to help me get out of here.”

  “Understood. Stay close. We’ll take off in a moment,” replied Vanderbule.

  The horns signaling an all-out retreat blared and the mages redoubled their attacking efforts, sending a final volley of spells with everything they had. The heavy burst of magic thrashed the beastmen front, forcing back even the stoutest beasts. The mages took this tiniest bit of respite to make their escape. Surrounded, the only way out was up.

  The mages took off, most relying on a heavy gust of wind at the ground to propel them upward. While effective, this method was highly inefficient and poorly controlled. The more skilled mages could fly using gravity or space manipulation instead. Those capable of doing so took on additional passengers in an attempt to save as many as possible. Although many of the knights were dead, the mages were still too few to take everyone.

  “How could I have known?” murmured Merlain.

  “General, we’re going now,” said Vanderbule, grabbing up the bewildered general.

  “Yes of course,” Merlain said weakly before returning to his rambling. “How could I have known?”

  Vanderbule took to the air, reducing the gravity on both him and his passenger until they were as light as a feather.

  “Don’t worry.” Vanderbule tried to console the grief stricken general. “No one can be blamed for this. Who could have foreseen that those savages held such power? They have never shown such intelligence, arranging that ambush, or such daring, meeting us on the open field of battle, and that’s not even mentioning the use of magic. No one could have predicted… But now is not the time for grief. We still have work.”

  “Thank you, Sagemeister. I lost my head for a moment. You’re right. Now is not the time. I must get back to Crystalpeak. Can you make it all that way?” said Merlain.

  Crystalpeak was a long ways away. It had taken the army over a month to march to Monstone Pass and even though army movements were notoriously slow, flying such a distance was no simple task, even for an accomplished Sagemeister like Vanderbule. That’s why mages marched with the regular troops in the first place.

  “It’s far, but I’ll try,” said Vanderbule.

  Merlain took a parting look at the battlefield from a thousand feet up, etching the scene and the events that led to it in his mind. He must get back to the city to organize their defenses. They still had most of their mages. From the walls, they should be able to hold the city until support arrived from Castlemere.

  Rrreeeeeeaaaahhh!

  Merlain turned his head skyward toward the vicious shriek.

  A blur went by too fast for Merlain to see and Vanderbule disappeared. Vanderbule’s anti-gravity field remained for a stunning second or two, propping up Merlain, alone in the sky, before failing and sending him back down towards the ground. As he fell, Merlain looked to the sky, searching for what happened. From between the clouds, he saw them. Great flying reptiles filled the sky. They dove down through the heavy cloud cover and snagged many of the fleeing mages. Merlain couldn’t tell how many escaped. He never saw the outcome.

  Merlain landed in a tree, thick branches pierced his armor like paper, gutting him. Even if he hadn’t hit the branches, he would have died. The force of impact from falling such a distance would have raddled his brain inside of his own skull, turning it to mush. The tree had actually helped, slowing his stop and lessening the impact. Rather than dying instantly, Merlain retained just enough strength to gurgle, “How could I have kno…?” Before the blood filling his throat drowned him.

  When the army was called to a halt, several deployed scryers notified Crystalpeak of the impending battle. As soon as he learned of it, Archlord Quewel called Sagemeister Parcelles to do a long distance scrying so he could watch. Of course, the Archlord would receive reports from his officers as soon as the battle was finished, but he would rather see it for himself.

  When the scrying first focused on the battlefield, Quewel was stunned. The scrying’s aerial view was wide, the individual soldiers were little more than tiny specks but even from this distance Quewel couldn’t help but be impressed by the scale of 40,000 troops all lined up in their formations.

  “Where are the beastmen?” Archlord Qu
ewel asked one of his military advisors. The scrying panned out to show the region around the army, but nothing was there, just open territory.

  “It is as I warned you sir,” said the advisor. “The army was just called to a halt because they were concerned about the possibility of attack. There may not be any fighting.”

  The Archlord continued watching for a few dull minutes and was just about to tell Parcelles to end the scrying, when the beastmen appeared from nowhere at the army’s backside and shattered their rearguard.

  “What was Merlain thinking? How could he let those primitives out smart him? Didn’t he search the area beforehand,” roared Quewel.

  “Milord, you must understand he probably did send out scouts,” explained one of the Archlord’s military advisors. “Those beastmen must have concealed themselves. You saw it for yourself in the scrying. They appeared out of nowhere.”

  The Archlord’s grumbling turned to outright rage as the rearguard was crushed and the beastmen turned their attention to the mages. The mages held their own. Giant plumes of fire, flashes of lightning, and rolling waves of earth were displayed all across the frontlines but without any knights to provide a forward defense the weaknesses of magic were on full display. Their magic was powerful but lacked precise control. At such a close range, the mages magic often backfired on them or the people around them. The Archlord saw numerous instances where mages accidentally set their own robes on fire or poorly executed lightning bolts that zapped random people nearby, be it friend or foe.

  Just as the knights reformed a new defensive line in front of the mages and Quewel gave a single breath of relief, the other shoe dropped.

  “What? An attack from the other side now,” Quewel snarled.

  “Not to worry Milord. See General Merlain kept most of his knights there from the start.”

  However, things weren’t all right.

  “Is that magic,” asked Quewel. Several of his closest advisors in the room were also accomplished mages.

  “It appears so,” one of the mages answered tentatively.

  “I thought the beastmen didn’t have magic,” said Quewel.

  “They didn’t. Or rather, they have never shown any aptitude for magic before. Nothing beyond whatever allows them to shapeshift,” said one of the advisors.

  “Then how do you explain this,” said Quewel.

  “They must be using artifacts. The primitives regularly use weapons and gear looted during raids on our settlements. They must have gotten hold of some artifacts,” said the advisor.

  “Where could they get so many? There are hundreds of them,” said Quewel.

  “The northern frontier is regularly attacked by wild beasts or beastmen, so they carry around a lot more weapons than the people here do. No doubt, the beastmen have been collecting them for a long time, but they have no way to recharge them. They have no mages to condense mana crystals. So they probably expended all their magic here.”

  “But what can we do? Our army has been crushed,” said Quewel.

  “The knights were crushed, but most of the mages survived. All battle mages can fly short distances so they can escape,” said one advisor.

  “We can conscript more soldiers and hole ourselves up behind our walls. We can hold them off,” said another advisor.

  Archlord Quewel watched the scrying window, his face covered with a deepening frown. All the mages took to the sky, several of them carrying a handful of others along. ‘Calm down. It’s okay, most of them are going to make it,’ Quewel thought.

  Then again, the beastmen unveiled another surprise. Wyverns swooped down and pounced on the fleeing mages. The mages may have been able to fly but in truth, most of them could do little more than hover. With such poor airspeed, they quickly succumbed to a platoon of giant flying reptiles. Then the scrying window collapsed and the men gathered in the great hall could see no more.

  “What happened?” said Quewel turning to Sagemeister Parcelles.

  “I lost the connection. Give me a second.” Parcelles reached for his power to try to reestablish the scrying. “Nope, I don’t sense anything coming from the other side. Sagemeister Vanderbule must not be broadcasting.”

  Monstone Pass was over two hundred miles from Crystalpeak. Sagemeister Parcelles couldn’t open a scrying window to bridge such a distance. He relied on another mage to broadcast what was happening and he picked up the signal and carried it the rest of the way. No one wanted to talk about what no one broadcasting meant, but considering the events just before the scrying cut off it was clear.

  “This is a disaster, an utter disaster. Our primary military force has been extinguished. What are we going to do? What are we going to do? What are we…” the Archlord finished weakly.

  Everyone in the hall heard the Archlord’s question. All of them were asking themselves the same thing. The room was silent. Nobody had an answer.

  “No one must speak of this,” ordered Archlord Quewel. “It will cause a panic. Word cannot leave this room until we have a plan in place.”

  “Yes, my lord,” all of his advisors agreed.

  “Parcelles,” the Archlord said grimly.

  “Yes my lord,” Parcelles answered.

  “Open a channel to Castlemere. I must notify the king.”

  Izusa watched attentively as she returned her blades to their places across her back. The battle was essentially over but Izusa remained alert. It would bring the greatest shame to fall now. She turned her gaze to her countrymen as they corralled the remaining human forces. The knights and archers would be slaughtered, while the mages would be added to their growing collection of human slaves and be made to forge more magical artifacts for the campaign.

  Izusa turned her eyes to the clear blue sky. Wyverns circled overhead. Izusa recognized one of them from the style of his armor. It was Corsel Irving Dragontail. He flew overhead, surveying the scene, until he spotted her and circled around to meet her.

  As he approached, one of the few mages still struggling against the beastmen broke free and took to the skies in an attempt to flee. With his speed, he might have gotten away, but unfortunately his timing was poor and the Corsel was right there. Irving Dragontail swung his namesake knocked the mage out cold.

  Now unconscious, the mage fell from the sky. Dragontail dove down and caught him with a clawed foot before easing the mage to the ground and shifting back to human form.

  “Secure with the others,” said Dragontail handing off the mage to an especially brutish looking bullman.

  “Miss Wolfclaw,” continued Dragontail turning to Izusa.

  “That’s Capsain Wolfclaw,” said Izusa.

  “Of course. Of course. Capsain,” said the Corsel, waving it off. “Men have done an admirable job. Now return to camp.”

  “All the hard work is done. We can still…” Izusa started.

  “Are being given a new assignment,” said Dragontail.

  “What assignment?” Izusa asked.

  “We just crushed the only significant human force in this region,” said Dragontail. “So the area is defenseless. Am sending a few raiding parties out to take advantage.”

  “Rest at camp tonight. Tomorrow, take group ahead of the main army and gather supplies before we make a push into cities,” Dragontail finished.

  “Understood,” said Izusa, her mind secretly spinning in the background. This new assignment lined up perfectly with her secret side job.

  Even months after, Lilith still seethed with anger over what the young Earthman did to her. He’d tricked her and bailed on her at just the wrong moment. If he’d done it sooner, Lilith could have lied and told her superiors that she had disposed of him, but no he had to disappear right after she went through the effort to convince them that the Earthman might possess something worth further study and should be spared.

  After he’d escaped, she tracked him to the human city of Crystalpeak, one of the few places still magically defended against her people. Lilith waited outside the city for several weeks fo
r him to leave, but he never did. Finally, Lilith was forced to report to her superiors of her failure. She’d been punished severely and had only just gotten her next assignment.

  “Are you Agent Morrigan?” Lilith asked out of ritual more than need. They were on a cold frosty mountain in the middle of nowhere. Who else could it be?

  “Yes, Lancepesade Demogorgon?” said Morrigan.

  “Yes,” Lilith replied.

  “Finally,” Morrigan gasped. “I’ve been here three days already. If I knew it was going to take this long I would have delivered this myself.”

  “I came as quickly as possible. I only got my orders three days ago and I had to avoid multiple armies,” said Lilith.

  “The fighting has started on this side already?” asked Morrigan.

  “Yes,” Lilith replied. “I take it that means it hasn’t on your side.”

  “No, not yet,” said Morrigan. “But that isn’t surprising. This side is far more aggressive.”

  Morrigan pulled out a small metallic brick from a pocket and handed it to Lilith.

  “This is the package,” said Morrigan. “I take it you’ve already been briefed on what to do with it.”

  “Of course,” said Lilith. “I am to take it to the northern laboratory. What is it?”

  “On the other side they call it a hard drive,” said Morrigan.

  “I guess this thing is hard, but I don’t understand how you are supposed to drive it. Or is that why they call it a hard drive? Because it is hard to drive a brick,” said Lilith.

  “It’s a data storage device,” said Morrigan. “Don’t worry, the experts at the laboratory will know how to work it.”

  “We’re going this far for information on those primitives,” said Lilith.

  “They may be primitive in terms of magic, but their science is actually quite advanced. I’ve been keeping track of their studies of the trans-dimensional portals and I think they may have stumbled on something we could use,” said Morrigan.